U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo arrives for a gathering along with her Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao, on the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing, Monday, Aug. 28, 2023.
Andy Wong | Pool | via Reuters
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo met with Chinese officials in a high-stakes visit to Beijing and Shanghai this week, and she or he said Sunday that the trip helped establish open lines of communication between the 2 nations.
Raimondo is the fourth high-level U.S. official to go to China this summer, but she is the primary U.S. Commerce secretary to travel to the country in five years — a period where the bilateral relationship has grown increasingly tense.
“We’re in a fierce competition with China at every level, and anyone who tells you in another way is naive,” Raimondo told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. “All of that being said, we’d like to administer this competition. Conflict is in nobody’s interest.”
Raimondo said that an absence of communication between the U.S. and China could further escalate tensions and result in misunderstandings, so structured discussions are key for addressing business issues that arise.
The Commerce secretary’s trip to China followed recent visits from U.S. special envoy for climate John Kerry, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. But Raimondo’s visit was called into query after Chinese hackers breached her emails earlier this summer.
“They did hack me, which was unappreciated, to say the least. I brought it up clearly, put it right on the table,” she said Sunday. “Didn’t pull any punches.”
Raimondo also brought up concerns regarding national security, U.S. labor and U.S. business, she said.
In the autumn of 2022, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security announced recent export controls that limited the power of Chinese businesses to purchase certain advanced semiconductors from American suppliers.
Raimondo said Sunday that the export controls are about national security, not about gaining an economic advantage. She added that the U.S. will remain as hard-line as possible with its most advanced technology.
“We will not be going to sell probably the most sophisticated American chips to China that they need for his or her military capability,” Raimondo said. “But I do need to be clear, we may also still proceed to sell billions of dollars of chips a 12 months to China, since the overwhelming majority of chips which are made will not be the forefront, leading edge that I’m talking about.”
She said though the export controls reflect a nuanced and sophisticated policy, selling certain chips to China will ultimately generate revenue for American businesses to speculate in further research and development.
